Measure your current seatpost from the clamp collar to the saddle rail and refer to the chart above to choose your preferred size.

Given that cyclists often have 60 to 70% of their body weight on their saddle, I don’t know if there is any other component that offers as much of an improvement in ride comfort (assuming you’ve already optimised your tyre width and pressure).A suspension seatpost allows you to take bikes with narrow tyres on much rougher terrain than you normally could. Obviously, this isn’t an ideal situation, but you’d be surprised how off-road you can go on 38mm tyres! Rather than using a full-suspension bike (for comfort), you can fit a suspension seatpost to a hardtail and enjoy similar levels of comfort without the extra weight, price and complexity. 4 Reasons To Not Use Suspension Seatposts The Cane Creek eeSilk is less than 100 grams heavier than a high-quality aluminium seatpost. To make the suspension shine, I used a firm Prologo Scratch RS saddle and no padded shorts. The tire pressure was intentionally set quite high (40 psi) so that we can see the seatpost’s capability. Vibration Test Results The ThudBuster ST (gen. 3 and earlier) has so little effective suspension that it barely smoothens the ride at all. There's surely marginal improvement compared to a rigid seatpost, but it's barely perceptible.

But it’s not perfect. It’s a spring-based suspension setup after all, so the saddle will move down and up on a bigger hit, and you really need to fine-tune the effect to get the most from your rides. And the installation could be a bit more user-friendly – but that’s a minor thing. Another solution? You can remove the Fender entirely. Redshift points out that all of the pivots are sealed and mostly maintenance free – they even state that you should not add any grease or lubrication to the pivot bushings. Also the cost and maintenance may put some people off. They are rather expensive and require fixing over time. While a normal seatpost doesn’t. Some would say just another thing to go wrong. Tester Stu writes: "The Kinekt 2.1 suspension seatpost uses two springs and a parallelogram style design, which gives about 35mm of vertical travel, but what I really like about it is that it's hugely adjustable.The downsides to this seatpost are that there is no pre-load adjuster, so you might find it springy sometimes, and it’s heavier than most (around 700 grams). Overall, the Pro version drops weight, is easier to set up and still offers a substantial advantage if you need more compliance. We think this new Pro version could find a home on lots of drop-bar bikes moving forward, because gravel events are getting more popular and don’t seem to be getting any shorter, smoother or easier. PUNCH LINES John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work. Redshift’s take on a suspension seatpost not only looks interesting, but it promises great performance. Suspension seatposts are available with anything from 20 to 90mm of travel. So, how much travel is best for you?

The other dropper option is the PNW Coast, which has 40mm of suspension travel and is the best-value dropper, by far.Its two-bolt saddle clamp remains level atop a parallelogram linkage pivoting on dry-lube bushings. When weight is added to the post a link compresses the internal spring(s), creating user-adjustable sag, which Redshift recommends should be around 20 per cent of the 35mm total travel.

If your bike has rear suspension, your saddle is already suspended so you do not need a suspension seatpost. Another mechanical design, the parallelogram seatpost, is undergoing a bit of a revival and we've included some here The gravel road with fast, repetitive bumps narrows the difference between an elastomer seatpost and a spring seatpost despite the variation in suspension travel. This is because the bump force is lower on gravel roads, which means that the spring post is likely only using half its travel anyway. The results are very clear. The Redshift suspension seatpost on firmness level 3 was much more comfortable than both my Ergon Allroad Pro and FSA carbon seatpost.Another option is the Canyon S15 VCLS 2.0 CF seatpost. The post is split into two sections which pivot at the top, giving vertical compliance, and it works very well indeed. It came on the Grail CF SL 8.0 SL that I tested, and the added comfort was very noticeable.